BradleyB's WebLog

Fixing Setup Errors Installing Silverlight Tools Beta 2

2008-06-18T22:17:00Z

What's the problem?

There are two predominate issues that are preventing a successful installation of Silverlight Tools Beta 2.

Silverlight_chainer.exe fails attempting to uninstall KB949325

Mismatched binaries when both Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta and Silverlight Tools Beta 2 are installed.

These two problems account for the vast majority of installation problems developers are running into.

What's the solution?

To help address these two specific problems I've created a .vbs script that attempts to detects and repairs both of these issues.

Download "Silverlight_Tools_Fixup.zip" attached to this post.

Unzip "Silverlight_Tools_Fixup.vbs" from Silverlight_Tools_Fixup.zip

Run the following:

Silverlight_Tools_Fixup.vbs

Silverlight_chainer.exe

So what happened?

When run Silverlight_Tools_Fixup.vbs will:

Detect and uninstall KB949325

Detect all advertised features in VS and repair them. (Advertised features result in mismatched binaries.)

*Vista non-admin scenarios will require running the script from command prompt that was started using "Run as administrator".
*You may also be prompted for original media when uninstalling KB949325.

Getting Help?

Be sure to check out the Silverlight 2 Beta 2 readme for known issues.

You can also get additional help from the "Installation and Setup" forum here: http://silverlight.net/forums/13.aspx

Upgrading to Silverlight Tools Beta 2 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta

2008-06-09T12:38:37Z

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 has just been released!

Checkout http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/

Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008 now includes support for both:

Visual Studio 2008 RTM (get a free 90 day trial version here)
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta

Upgrading "the Easy way"

[update] Please read Fixing Setup Errors Installing Silverlight Tools Beta 2

Installing Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 is quick and easy following the steps below.

Visual Studio 2008 RTM w/Silverlight Tools Beta 1 to Beta 2

If you simply want to upgrade your current Silverlight Tools Beta 1 installation:

Install "Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008"
Install "Expression Blend 2.5 Preview"

note: if you later install Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta, you'll need to reinstall Silverlight Tools Beta 2

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta to Silverlight Tools Beta 2

If you've already got Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta and now want to install Silverlight Tools Beta2:

Install "Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008"
Install "Expression Blend 2.5 Preview"

Visual Studio 2008 RTM w/ Silverlight Tools Beta 1 to
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta & Silverlight Tools Beta 2

The recommended way to upgrade to both Silverlight Tools Beta 2 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta is:

Uninstall "Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008"
Uninstall KB949325 (in Add/Remove Programs select "view installed updates")
Install "Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Beta"
Install "Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008"
Install "Expression Blend 2.5 Preview"

Following the above steps will ensure a smooth upgrade to both Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta and Silverlight Tools Beta 2.

Start Building Awesome Silverlight 2 Applications.

That's it, you're ready to start building incredible applications.

Checkout this getting started video
Quick Starts samples for Beta 2 are here
You can review the breaking changes between Beta1 and Beta2 here
For an Silverlight Tools update checkout What’s new with Silverlight Tools Beta 2
And of course be sure to check out ScottGu's post Silverlight 2 Beta2 Released

Installation Errors?

The rest of the post is dedicated to the variety of errors and workarounds when not following the above sequences. The length of this post should be incentive enough to stick to the script above.

If you've already run into problems, fear not. The rest of this post is dedicated to getting you up and running with Silverlight 2 Beta 2 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta.

Installer Contents

The "Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008" installer "silverlight_chainer.exe" contains the following installers:

Silverlight.2.0_Developer.exe Silverlight 2 Beta 2

silverlight_sdk.msi Silverlight 2 Beta 2 SDK

VS90-KB950630.msp KB950630 for Visual Studio 2008 RTM

VS90SP1-KB950632.msp KB950632 for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta

VS_SilverlightTools_Beta2_Setup.exe Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008

You can extract the individual components using this command:

silverlight_chainer.exe /extract

The first thing you'll notice is that there are two KBs, KB950630 and KB950632.

KB950630 is a patch for Visual Studio 2008 RTM
KB950632 is a patch for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta

The installer will apply the patch matching the installation of Visual Studio that you have. This is why you need to rerun the Silverlight Tools Beta 2 installer if installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta after installing Silverlight Tools Beta 2.

note: These KBs are ENU specific. The localized release of Silverlight Tools Beta 2 will have unique KB #.

The installation sequence used by "silverlight_chainer.exe" is:

Uninstall Silverlight Tools Beta 1
Uninstall KB949325
Uninstall "Microsoft Blend for Silverlight Beta 1"
Uninstall the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 SDK
Install Silverlight.2.0_Developer.exe (Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Developer Runtime)
Install either KB950630 or KB950632 depending on version of VS
Install silverlight_sdk.msi (Silverlight 2 Beta 2 SDK)
Install VS_SilverlightTools_Beta2_Setup.exe

Notice that the installer also uninstall's "Microsoft Blend for Silverlight Beta 1". You can get the updated version of Blend for Silverlight Beta 2 here.

SP1 Beta Installation Errors

Installing out of the recommended sequence above can result in installation errors or design time errors when using Visual Studio.

SP1 (Beta) Does not Apply

One of the more common error messages while installing VS SP1 is:

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (Beta) does not apply, or is blocked by another condition on your system. Please click the link below for more details.

This happens when installing "Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Beta" before uninstalling "Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008"

Check out this post for more information: Error installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta and Silverlight Tools Beta 1

The solution is to uninstall Silverlight Tools Beta 1.

Important: You also need to manually uninstall KB949325 prior to installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta.

Failure to uninstall KB949325 is the source of most of the other errors and problems listed below.

Fatal Error during installation

During the installation of VS SP1 you may also come across an error such as:

The installation failed with the following message:
Fatal error during installation.
Click the Finish button to exit.

Check out this post for more information: KB944899 Should be Removed before Installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Error from silverlight_uninstallrtmpatches.exe

[6/6/2008, 19:2:12] (IronSpigot::ExeInstallerBase::PerformAction) c:\036de815481bb1774fbe5acf\silverlight_uninstallrtmpatches.exe - Exe installer does not provide a log file name
[6/6/2008, 19:2:12] (IronSpigot::ExeInstallerBase::PerformAction) Exe (c:\036de815481bb1774fbe5acf\silverlight_uninstallrtmpatches.exe) failed with 0x80070643 - Fatal error during installation. :
[6/6/2008, 19:2:12] (IronSpigot::ExeInstallerBase::PerformAction) PerformOperation on exe returned exit code 1603 (translates to HRESULT = 0x80070643)

The above error has been reported and maybe related to installing on 64 bit Vista machines. This is the command that the silverlight_chainer.exe runs to remove KB949325. To get around this problem manually uninstall KB949325. The next time you run the the silverlight_chainer it will skip this step.

How to Validate SP1 is Installed Correctly

WARNING: Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta will report installation success even if KB949325 was not removed first. Unfortunately, failure to remove KB949325 will prevent some SP1 files from being updated.

This is why it's critically important to remove KB949325 before installing VS SP1.

One way to determine if KB949325 prevented SP1 from updating correctly is to check the version of Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Application.dll

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Application.dll

VS08 SP1 Version should be:

Version 9.0.30428.1

Date modified 4/29/2008

Size 468 KB

If you have the following version it's from the Silverlight Tools Beta 1 release:

Version 9.0.21116.48

Date modified 2/23/2008

Size 492 KB

This means that KB949325 was not removed and thus prevented SP1 from updating numerous files including Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Application.dll.

If you're in this state, read on carefully and see the "How to Recover" section.

Installing Silverlight Tools Beta 2

Unfortunately, unless you check files versions there is no obvious indicator that SP1 did not install all of it's files.

If you then installed "Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008" while Visual Studio is in this state with missed matched binaries you will get the following errors when running Visual Studio:

Creating new Silverlight projects:

Method 'SelectSilverlightProject' in type 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Silverlight.SLPackage' from assembly 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Silverlight, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' does not have an implementation.

Opening existing Silverlight projects:

Package Load Failure
Package 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Silverlight.SLPackage, Microsoft.VisualStudio.Silverlight, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' has failed to load properly (GUID =
{CB22EEOE-4072-4AE7-96E2-90FCCF879544}). ...

Note that if you dismiss this dialog by selecting the "Yes" button then you'll need to run the following command later on after the installation has been fixed.

devenv /resetskippkgs

You'll also notice that in this scenario the version of Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Application.dll is still 9.0.21116.48.

Basically once KB949325 is installed it prevent subsequent patches from applying. This is why its critically important to uninstall the KB949325 before installing VS08 SP1 Beta.

As an aside if you install Silverlight Tools Beta 2 before SP1, it will remove KB949325. you'll just need to reinstall Silverlight Tools Beta 2.

How to Recover

Fortunately, all is not lost. If you do get into this state w/ miss matched binaries here is how you can recover.

The first thing you'll need to do is to uninstall the KBs installed by Silverlight Tools. To see these updates you'll need to run "Add/Remove Programs"

For Vista or newer:

Open Uninstall a Program from the Control Panel
Click 'View installed updates' in the task bar on the left
Remove KB949325 (it will be listed under your version of VS2008)
Remove KB950632 (it will be listed under your version of VS2008)

For pre-Vista systems:

Open the Add/Remove Programs dialog from the Control Panel
Click 'Show updates' at the top of the window
Remove KB949325 (it will be listed under your version of VS)
Remove KB950632 (it will be listed under your version of VS2008)

You may get this error "The patch is not applied to this product." when uninstalling KB949325.

Go ahead and disregard this error, we'll take care of it with the steps below.

Even after uninstalling both KB949325 and KB950632 you'll notice that the version of Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Application.dll is still 9.0.21116.48.

The next step will be to create a batch file containing the following commands:

rem Repair features Visual Studio SP1
rem ENU VSTS
msiexec /passive /i {80C06CCD-7D07-3DB6-86CD-B57B3F0614D8} ADDLOCAL=VWD_for_VS_Ent_5902_x86_enu /L*vx %TEMP%\dd_repair_VSTS.log

rem ENU VSTD
msiexec /passive /i {6721AC10-3743-38F1-B178-C0EC6C9A4108} ADDLOCAL=VWD_for_VS_Ent_5902_x86_enu /L*vx %TEMP%\dd_repair_VSTD.log

rem ENU PRO
msiexec /passive /i {D7DAD1E4-45F4-3B2B-899A-EA728167EC4F} ADDLOCAL=VWD_for_VS_Ent_5902_x86_enu /L*vx %TEMP%\dd_repair_PRO.log

rem ENU VSTA
msiexec /passive /i {8F10429A-DFF5-3B55-9306-0ADEB337CFD3} ADDLOCAL=VWD_for_VS_Ent_5902_x86_enu /L*vx %TEMP%\dd_repair_VSTA.log

rem ENU VSTT
msiexec /passive /i {23D0117E-F9A5-364E-A379-70EC2DE02B9F} ADDLOCAL=VWD_for_VS_Ent_5902_x86_enu /L*vx %TEMP%\dd_repair_VSTT.log

rem ENU VSDB
msiexec /passive /i {4298C783-524F-3C3E-9B11-36FA64604B2B} ADDLOCAL=VWD_for_VS_Ent_5902_x86_enu /L*vx %TEMP%\dd_repair_VSDB.log

rem ENU STD
msiexec /passive /i {F434F50E-7614-3EA8-9008-2FB866B697DA} ADDLOCAL=VWD_for_VS_Ent_5902_x86_enu /L*vx %TEMP%\dd_repair_STD.log

Run the batch file you created with the above commands. This will put VS back into a recoverable state. Note that the KB949325 will still be listed in Add & Remove Programs. Unfortunately it'll continue to show up even though it's been uninstalled.

Now re-install "Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008". You can also do this by running Silverlight_chainer.exe again.

Confirm that KB950632 is shown when viewing installed updates in Add/Remove Programs.

Confirm that the new Beta 2 version of Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.Application.dll is:

Version 9.0.30428.9

Date modified 6/3/2008

Size 512 KB

Other Errors:

“Object reference not set to an instance of an object” when adding a WCF service" - Crash on Exit

Tim Anderson has found a work around for the following problem and posted a solution here

Error “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” when adding a WCF service
Silverlight app cannot see WCF services in same solution
Error “Unable to find ‘DynamicTypeService’” when clicking the Advanced button in the Add Service Reference dialog.
Visual Studio crashing on exit

We're almost done!

If you now get an error creating or opening Silverlight projects:

The project type is not supported by this installation

You'll need to run the following command:

devenv /resetskippkgs

Finally, if no controls are showing up on the toolbox when editing Silverlight XAML pages then you'll need to:

delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\toolbox*.*

At this point you should be up and running with Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta and Silverlight Tools Beta 2.

Where to go for Installation Help?

Be sure to check out the Silverlight 2 Beta 2 readme for known issues.

If you run into installation issues not covered here please post your question in the "Installation and Setup" forum here: http://silverlight.net/forums/13.aspx

VS Live Orlando "Introduction to Silverlight programming"

2008-05-15T19:56:00Z

I just got back from VS Live in Orlando where I was pinch hitting for Jesse Liberty and presented a talk titled "Introduction to Silverlight programming".

I wasn't familiar with Jesse's talk so I threw something together base on a new hands-on-Lab from Sascha Corti at Microsoft Switzerland. It's a great walk-through leveraging several of the new Silverlight 2 controls to build a working Silverlight application.

This hands-on-Lab was originally developed using Expression Blend 2.5 to build the Silverlight UI. Since this was a VS Live presentation I thought it would be fun to create a VS track through this lab using the great XAML intellisense in VS.

During the talk we covered:

Creating Silverlight projects in VS
Editing Silverlight pages in Expression Blend
Layout using Grid and StackPanel
TextBlock vs TextBox
WatermarkTextBox
DatePicker
Slider
How to create a DropDownList from a user control
Asynchronous WCF service calls
DataGrid

Homework left for the audience:

Add the picture gallery using a ListBox and data binding using {Binding } syntax
Using type converters to create a Image URL
Add the pop-up with car details using storyboard animations
Add improved styling for the DataGrid and Slide

Attached to this post is the slide deck along with my script for the VS Track through the hands-on-lab. A great place to start is to simply download the lab and start working your way though it. Sascha has done a great job of documenting each step along way.

Tools used in lab:

Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Silverlight 2
Expression Blend 2.5 Preview
MSDN Tech Talk and Hands-on-Lab "Silverlight 2"

References

Jesse Liberty's Slides and Code from VS Live San Francisco
http://silverlight.net/blogs/jesseliberty/archive/2008/04/03/slides-and-code-from-vs-live.aspx

Error installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta and Silverlight Tools Beta 1

2008-05-12T15:32:02Z

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta was released this morning. There are known incompatibilities between it and Silverlight Tools Beta 1.

To install VS08 SP1 Beta you must uninstall Silverlight Tools Beta 1 and KB949325.

Complete details can be found on the Visual Web Developer Team blog at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/05/12/error-installing-visual-studio-2008-sp1-beta-and-silverlight-tools-beta-1.aspx

Silverlight Tools Beta 2 will be release in the coming weeks and has full support for VS08 SP1 Beta.

Silverlight Game Tutorial by Mike Snow

2008-03-31T16:09:47Z

Mike Snow has started a great blog series on game programming with Silverlight. Check it out http://silverlight.net/blogs/msnow/archive/2008/03/25/introduction.aspx

Installation Tips for Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008

2008-03-06T06:52:00Z

As many of you know Silverlight 2 Beta 1 was release today at MIX08. What an awesome day. The new applications under development based on Silverlight 2 are truly incredible! Check out http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/

To get started with Silverlight 2 you can download "Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008" here.

The Silverlight Tools installer will install everything needed to start working with Silverlight 2 in Visual Studio 2008.

It installs the following:

Silverlight 2 Beta 1
Silverlight 2 SDK Beta 1
KB949325 for Visual Studio 2008
Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008

Even if you've previously installed Silverlight 1.0 or Silverlight 2 Beta 1 the installer will proceed and install the additional components.

That's it! You're now ready to start creating rich Internet applications with Silverlight 2 and Visual Studio 2008.

While the installation is that simple in most cases, there have been some installation issues reported. I've listed below the issues and solutions I've run into so far. I'll update this post if new issues are reported.

Installation Error

If you do run into an installation error, it's most like due to a previous installation of Silverlight 1.1 Alpha or any of the Silverlight SDKs, including the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 SDK. You must uninstall all these components before installing Silverlight Tools Beta1 for VS08. If you don't uninstall these products first you'll get this error dialog from the installer.

If you see this dialog, be sure to uninstall all the dependent components and restart the installer.

Can't Find KB949325 to Uninstall?

If you ever need to uninstall KB949325, you can do this through Add and Remove Programs. However it does not show up by default in Add and Remove Programs.

Instead you need to select "View Installed Updates"

Now you'll see all the updates and patches installed to applications on your computers. Scroll down and you'll find KB949325. It will be listed as:

It should not come as a surprise that if you uninstall KB949325, you will not be able to use Silverlight projects in Visual Studio. Only uninstall KB949325 if you're planning on returning VS08 to its RTM condition or if you're attempting to reinstall Silverlight Tools.

Prompt for installation source media

In some cases you may get a prompted for the installation CD-ROM for Visual Studio 2008.

Heath Stewart has an excellent blog post on some of the issues users are encountering when installing patches for Visual Studio 2008. You can read his entire post here. Heath has a new post specific to this prompt when installing Silverlight Tools here.

One of the scenarios causing this to happen with the Silverlight Tools installer is when Visual C++ is not installed. The other component that will cause this to happen is if you don't have the "Microsoft Visual Studio Web Authoring Component".

You can manually get around this. First you'll need to extract the individual installers from the Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for VS08 chained installer. To do this download and save the Silverlight Tools chained installer from here and save it locally.

To extract the individual installers run this command: silverlight_chainer.exe /extract

This will extract the following installers, along with other support files.

Silverlight.2.0.exe
VS90-KB949325.msp
silverlight_sdk.msi
VS_SilverlightTools_Beta1_Setup.exe

It critical that you install these components in the order listed above. (Silverlight 2, KB949325, SDK, Tools) To install KB949325 w/o being prompted for media run this command:

msiexec /p VS90-KB949325.msp /L*vx VS90-KB949325.log REINSTALL=ALL

Note: this command will require administrative rights and it does not add the KB to Add/Remove Programs.

To list these Silverlight tools in Visual Studio's Help->About dialog and to be able to uninstall these tools from Add/Remove Programs (ARP), install the patch again using the following command:

msiexec /p VS90-KB949325.msp /L*vx VS90-KB949325-2.log ADDLOCAL=KB947520,KB949325

Finally run the VS_SilverlightTools_Beta1_Setup.exe installer to complete the Silverlight Tools installation.

The project type is not supported by this installation

Even when installed successfully, some users have seen this error:

This is happening for users who have installed previous builds of Silverlight Tools and for one reason or another the Silverlight package for Visual Studio has been disabled. You can re-enable the Silverlight package by running the following command.

devenv.exe /resetskippkgs

The ASP.NET Silverlight controls show appear in the Toolbox for .aspx pages

This happens if the Silverlight SDK is installed before KB949325. As listed above the install order is important. To fix this uninstall the Silverlight SDK and re-install it.

Help Files don't show up in Visual Studio

To integrate the VS help files included in the Silverlight 2 SDK follow the instructions in this readme.txt installed with the SDK.

[Program Files]\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v2.0\Documentation\VS-Help\Readme.txt

The installer is hung?

At the end of the installation process the installer appears to be hung.

The installer can take up to 10 minutes at the end of the installation process. What's going on? The last thing the installer does is merge the help dictionaries. If you've installed the help files for VS locally this can take some time. Don't kill the process, it's not hung.

Where to go for Installation Help?

Be sure to check out the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 readme for known issues.

If you run into installation issues not covered here please post your question in the "Installation and Setup" forum here: http://silverlight.net/forums/13.aspx

Developing Web Applications on Windows Vista with Visual Studio 2005

2006-09-18T22:12:00Z

Bradley Millington just made a great blog post about using IIS7 RC1 with VS2005.

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2006/09/18/761206.aspx

How to set scriptmaps in a Web Setup Project

2006-09-11T18:21:00Z

Van Kichline has started a series of blog posts documenting how to extend web setup projects. His first post documents how to set the ASP.NET 2.0 scriptmaps

http://blogs.msdn.com/vank/archive/2006/09/09/748290.aspx

Hope this helps,
Brad.

ASP.Net WebProfile Generator

2006-05-09T03:02:00Z

Tim McBride has published a cool sample that will generate a WebProfile class for accessing the ASP.NET profile object from within the code behind files of a Web Application Project.

http://www.gotdotnet.com/Workspaces/Workspace.aspx?id=406eefba-2dd9-4d80-a48c-b4f135df4127

Because Web Application Projects compile the code behind files in advance of ASP.NET they do not have access to dynamically generated types like the Profile object. This sample provided an add-in into VS that will generate a WebProfile proxy class that will fetch profile information from the real ASP.NET profile object at runtime.

Hope it helps,
Brad.

Web Application Projects Officially released!

2006-05-09T00:21:00Z

Web Application Projects has been released! It live at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/reference/infrastructure/wap/default.aspx

New since RC1:

Team Build Support with VSTS
Strongly-typed access to resources defined in App_GlobalResources
Edit and Continue Support (To Enabled check Project Properties Web Tab)
Numerous bug fixes….

Web Application Projects now provided a similar development style and compilation model as was used in Visual Studio 2003, but with full ASP.NET 2.0 support!

Hope this helps,
Brad.

How to share dynamic URLs across multiple Web Application Projects

2006-05-04T19:24:00Z

I was recently asked how to configure a Dynamic URL so that it could be updated in machine.config and affect all Web Application Projects calling that Web Reference on that machine. This is fairly straight forward in VS03 and in VS05 Web Site projects.

In both VS03 and in VS05 Web Site projects the Web Reference proxies are generated to lookup the dynamic url form the <appSettings> section of web.config

Web.config

Proxy Generated:

/// <remarks/>
public WebService()
string urlSetting = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["localhost.WebService"];
if ((urlSetting != null)) {
this.Url = urlSetting;
}
else {
this.Url = "http://localhost/test/WebService.asmx";
}
}

Since the <appSettings> section rolls up from machine.config it's easy to put this setting in machine.config remove the entry from web.config and you're all set.

However, in VS05 WinForm projects and Web Applicaiton Project the proxy is generated to use the <applicationSettings> section.

Web.config

<configSections>
<sectionGroup name="applicationSettings" type="System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsGroup, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" >
<section name="MainWeb.Properties.Settings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" />
</sectionGroup>
</configSections>

<applicationSettings>
<MainWeb.Properties.Settings>
<setting name="MainWeb_localhost_WebService" serializeAs="String">
<value>http://localhost/test/WebService.asmx</value>
</setting>
</MainWeb.Properties.Settings>
</applicationSettings>

Proxy Generated:

/// <remarks/>
public WebService() {
this.Url = global::MainWeb.Properties.Settings.Default.MainWeb_localhost_WebService;
if ((this.IsLocalFileSystemWebService(this.Url) == true)) {
this.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
this.useDefaultCredentialsSetExplicitly = false;
}
else {
this.useDefaultCredentialsSetExplicitly = true;
}
}

As you can see the proxy generated is very different depending on the type of project you’re using. If you want to specify a dynamic URL in machine.config that can be overridden in web.config. It turns out that was very easy to do in VS03 and in Web Site projects because they simply used <appSettings>. However with WinForm projects and WAP we now getting the settings from the System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection. See the definition under <configSections> above.

this.Url = global::MainWeb.Properties.Settings.Default.MainWeb_localhost_WebService;

Because the generated proxy is assuming that the URL is coming from a configuration section named <MainWeb.Properties.Settings>, you’ll have to make sure you have one defined at the machine.config level.

You’ll need to add these both to machine.config:

<applicationSettings>
<MainWeb.Properties.Settings>
<setting name="MainWeb_localhost_WebService" serializeAs="String">
<value>http://localhost/test/WebService.asmx</value>
</setting>
</MainWeb.Properties.Settings>
</applicationSettings>

Once this is done your proxy will always find the value from machine.config unless overridden in web.config.

This get’s more complicated if you’re trying to share the Dynamic URL across multiple applications. To share a Dynamic URL across applications you’ll want to make sure that the proxy in each WAP project is using the same <applicationSettings> entry.

The best way to do this is to create a class library project will all the Web References that you want to share. For example I created one named WebRefLibrary. The config entries for this library project are as follows.

<applicationSettings>
<WebRefLibrary.Properties.Settings>
<setting name="WebRefLibrary_localhost_WebService" serializeAs="String">
<value>http://localhost/test/WebService.asmx</value>
</setting>
</WebRefLibrary.Properties.Settings>
</applicationSettings>

The next step is to add these entries to machine.config. Once that is done I can add a reference to WebRefLibrary to each of my WAP Projects. Even with out adding anything to the web.config of those WAP they will get the dynamic URL from machine.config.

However I can now update the web.config in any of my WAP projects to override the dynamic URL.

<applicationSettings>
<WebRefLibrary.Properties.Settings>
<setting name="WebRefLibrary_localhost_WebService" serializeAs="String">
<value>http://localhost/Production/NewWebService.asmx</value>
</setting>
</WebRefLibrary.Properties.Settings>
</applicationSettings>

By using a Class Library project containing my Web References I’m able to share a dynamic URL across Web Application Projects and update with the URL by a single change to machine.config.

Hope this helps,
Brad.

How to open a website in Visual Studio 2005 from the command line

2005-12-09T22:54:00Z

I’ve seen several queries asking how to launch Visual Studio 2005 opening a specific folder as a website from the command line. Unfortunately Visual Studio 2005 does not support this by default but you can enable the scenario by writing a macro.

To do this, create a new macro either in an existing module or in a new module. For this example I’m going to add a module call Website to the MyMacros project.

If you’re new to macros in Visual Studio 2005, select menu Tools/Macros/Macros IDE, then select the MyMacros project and add a module.

Before you can use the new Website extensibility objects within VS you’ll need to add a reference to VsWebSite.Interop.dll.

Once added you can add the following code:

Public Module Website

Sub OpenWebsite(Optional ByVal path As String = "")

If (String.Compare(path, String.Empty) = 0) Then

MsgBox("Must supply a folder path to the OpenWebsite macro", MsgBoxStyle.OkOnly)

Else

Dim webPkg As VsWebSite.VSWebPackage

webPkg = DTE.GetObject("WebPackage")

webPkg.OpenWebSite(path, VsWebSite.OpenWebsiteOptions.OpenWebsiteOption_None, False)

End If

End Sub

End Module

After this code is added you’ll be able to run the macro. You can test it out in the command window.

From the Command Window in VS:

>Macros.MyMacros.Website.OpenWebsite C:\MyProjects\MyCompany\CompanySite

From the Command Line:

devenv /command "Macros.MyMacros.Website.OpenWebsite C:\MyProjects\MyCompany\CompanySite"

After its working you can register a shell command enabling an “Open as Visual Studio Website” command on any folder in windows explorer.

To do this copy the following into a OpenWebsite.reg file and run it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\OpenVSWeb]

@="Open as Visual Studio Website"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\OpenVSWeb\command]

@="devenv.exe /command \\\"Macros.MyMacros.Website.OpenWebsite %1\\\""

Now you should be able to right click on a folder in Windows Explorer and select “Open as Website”.

Hope this helps,

Brad.

Tips to optimize design-time build performance for Web Sites in Visual Studio 2005

2005-12-06T06:03:00Z

There have been a number of posts with tips to improve build performance within Visual Studio 2005. I've consolidate these posts and other tips into a single post of techniques for common problems.

Do not disable batch compilation
Make sure web.config does not have <compilation batch="false" />
The default is “true” so unless it’s explicitly set to “false” you’re ok.

Some post have recommended disabling batch compilation to address a migration issue with circular references. Unfortunately this dramatically impacts build performance. You're much better off addressing the circular references than to disabling batch compilation.

Leverage Server-side Compilation
Visual Studio 2005 is leveraging ASP.Net 2.0 server-side compilation. The IDE is primarily validating that the site will compile. For most edit/run iterations it's not really necessary to validate/build the entire site on every F5 or solution build.

Change Build options for the web site project: (Property pages <shift>F4 -> Build)
“Start Action (F5)” should be either "build page" or "no build". - Improves F5 performance
“Build Solution Action” uncheck “Build Web as part of solution.” - Makes <ctrl><shift>b very fast.

While this does improve build performance because ASP.Net is only compiling the files needed for the request on F5, it doesn't help the developer identify all the compilation issues within the IDE before running. There are a couple of techniques you an use to help with this.

Move App_Code files into a separate class library project and reference it form the web site project. This will improve build performance and provide all compilation errors for these class files within the IDE.
Add a Web Deployment Project to the solution. Configure the Web Deployment project so that it only builds for the release configuration. This will allow you to completely validate the site before deployment without compromising the performance of the edit/run iterations under the debug configuration.

Move App_Code files into a separate class library project
I'm repeating this tip because even if you don't change the default build options you can improve build performance by moving the files from App_Code into a separate class library project.

Check for conflicting dependencies
If you do have conflicting dependencies, the web site project will do a full clean rebuild on every build even if only a page changes. The problem is when you add a file based references that have a common dependency but to different versions of that dependency. A file based references have a .dll.refresh file in the bin folder. The .refresh file has the path to the original assembly. These paths are checked on every build.

In this example we have two assemblies, A.dll and B.dll both dependent on Foo.dll.

A.dll -> dependent on Foo.dll
B.dll -> dependent on Foo.dll

When A.dll is refreshed the project system will discover the dependency on Foo.dll and copy it into bin. Likewise when B.dll is refreshed Foo.dll will be copied if different than the one already in bin. The problem is that when a class library is built by a class library project in VS it caches the dependencies. So as you can see here Class Libraries A and B both have a private copy of Foo.

ClassLibraryA
A\bin\debug\A.dll
A\bin\debug\Foo.dll

ClassLibraryB
B\bin\debug\B.dll
B\bin\debug\Foo.dll

ClassLibraryFoo
Foo\bin\debug\Foo.dll

If ClassLibraryFoo is updated and only ClassLibraryB is recompiled then ClassLibraryB has a updated copy for Foo.dll but ClassLibraryA does not. When the web project is built, the refresh of A is copying in it's copy of Foo and the refresh of B is copying in it's copy. Each time Foo is copied because it's different than the one already in bin.

Because the bin is changing with every VS build the ASP.Net compilation cache is invalidated forcing a full build. Thus every build is a full build.

To fix this problem do one of the following:

Add class libraries A,B and Foo to the same solution as the web site and replace the file base references with project references.
Always build all consumers of a dependency when the dependency changes.
Remove the .refresh files and manually update as needed.

Turn off AutoToolboxPopulate in the Windows Forms Designer options.
Some user have reported a hang during build. This was resolve by turning off AutoToolboxPopulate.
http://forums.asp.net/1108115/ShowPost.aspx

Tools/Options/Windows Forms Designer/General/AutoToolboxPopulate = False

Disable validation for HTML editing
By default the HTML/ASPX editor performs html validation in the background while the file is open. This does not normally impact performance unless there are numerous error to report. So if you're already compliant, turning it off won't save you much but if you do have errors and don’t' need to fix them, turning if off can make a difference.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/0byxkfet.aspx

You'll be surprised at the performance improvement these changes will make for the edit/run iterations of your daily workflow. My sample solution with 2 class libraries and 1 web site went from 17 seconds to build to less than a second. While these techniques may not be right for every project, the improvements are significant enough that you should try them out and evaluate them for yourself.

Hope this helps,
Brad.

How to auto-increment assembly version using a custom MSBuild task

2005-12-02T17:31:00Z

The assembly version string has the format “major.minor.build.revision”, such as 2.0.50727.42. Here is a sample on how to create a custom MSBuild task for Web Deployment Projects to auto-increment the build and revision portion of your version strings with each build.

Web Deployment Projects provide a way to pre-compile a Visual Studio 2005 Web Site project into a single assembly. It also allows you to specify the AssemblyFileVersion and AssemblyVersion for this assembly.

These values can be set in the Project Properties dialog of the Web Deployment Project. Once set the following will be added to the Web Deployment Project file.

</AssemblyAttributes>

</AssemblyAttributes>

</ItemGroup>

The Microsoft.WebDeployment.targets file includes a target named GenerateAssemblyInfo that will use the @(AssemblyAttributes) item collection defined above to dynamically create an AssemblyInof.cs file. This file is compiled into an assembly and passed to aspnet_merge.exe using its –copyattrs argument.

This is great if you want to fix the version to a specific value, but what if you want to generate a new build number with every build. After all the format of version string is “major.minor.build.revision”.

To do this we’ll need to dynamically generate the AssemblyAttributes item collection at build time instead of statically declaring their values in the Web Deployment Project file.

First create a custom MSBuild task. MSBuild tasks are classes derived from Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Task that override the Execute() method. You can learn more about writing MSBuild tasks from How To: Write a Task

Here is a sample MSBuild task that will increment build and revision numbers.

Contents of file IncrementBuildNumber.cs:

using System;

using System.IO;

using Microsoft.Build.Utilities;

using Microsoft.Build.Framework;

namespace MyTasks

{

public class IncrementBuildNumber : Task

{

string m_fileName; // Text file containing previous build number

long m_buildNumber; // Build number based on current date. 12/2/2005 would be 51202

long m_revisionNumber; // Revision number, increments within a day with each new day starting at 0

/// <summary>

/// MSBuild entry point into this task.

/// </summary>

public override bool Execute()

{

bool bSuccess = true;

try

{

IncrementNumbers();

Log.LogMessage(MessageImportance.Normal, "Build {0}.{1}", m_buildNumber, m_revisionNumber);

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

// Log Failure

Log.LogErrorFromException(ex);

Log.LogMessage(MessageImportance.High, "Failed to increment Build Number!");

bSuccess = false;

}

return bSuccess;

}

/// <summary>

/// Task argument set MSBuild project file

/// </summary>

[Required]

public string File

{

get { return m_fileName; }

set { m_fileName = value; }

}

/// <summary>

/// Task output available to MSBuild

/// </summary>

[Output]

public long BuildNumber

{

get { return m_buildNumber; }

set { m_buildNumber = value; }

}

/// <summary>

/// Task output available to MSBuild

/// </summary>

[Output]

public long RevisionNumber

{

get { return m_revisionNumber; }

set { m_revisionNumber = value; }

}

/// <summary>

/// Increments Build Number and Build Revision

/// based on the numbers saved in a text file.

/// </summary>

private void IncrementNumbers()

{

// Set build number to current date, 12/02/2005 == 51202

DateTime dDate = DateTime.Now;

m_buildNumber = dDate.Year % 2000 * 10000;

m_buildNumber += dDate.Month * 100;

m_buildNumber += dDate.Day;

// Defualt build revision to 0

m_revisionNumber = 0;

// Check for a previous build and revision number

if (System.IO.File.Exists(m_fileName))

{

StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(m_fileName);

string previousBuild = sr.ReadLine();

sr.Close();

string[] previousNumbers = previousBuild.Split('.');

if (m_buildNumber == long.Parse(previousNumbers[0]))

m_revisionNumber = long.Parse(previousNumbers[1]) + 1;

}

// Write the current build numbers to the file

StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(m_fileName);

sw.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}.{1}", m_buildNumber, m_revisionNumber));

sw.Flush();

sw.Close();

}

Compile file IncrementBuildNumber.cs into the assembly MyTasks.dll

csc /t:library /r:Microsoft.Build.Utilities.dll;Microsoft.Build.Framework.dll /out:MyTasks.dll IncrementBuildNumber.cs

Copy the MyTasks.dll into the same directory as the Web Deployment Project.

Now that we’ve got our custom MSBuild task we need to modify the Web Deployment Project file to use our new custom task.

You can edit the project file by right clicking on the Web Deployment Project in the solution explorer and selecting “Open Project File” from the shortcut menu.

Once opened add a <UsingTask> between the <Project> and the first <PropertyGroup> to register the new custom IncrementBuildNumber task with MSBuild.

<!--

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Web Deployment Project

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=55111

-->

…

</PropertyGroup>

Next override the BeforeBuild target with the code below.

<IncrementBuildNumber

File = "$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\BuildNumbers.txt">

</IncrementBuildNumber>

</CreateItem>

</CreateItem>

</Target>

In this sample we’re using a BuildNumbers.txt file to store the build numbers from each build. It is passed to the IncrementBuildNumber task through the File property. The $(MSBuildProjectDirectory) property is a built in property provided by MSBuild that specifies the directory containing the project file.

The BuildNumber and BuildRevision values are then copied from our custom MSBuild task IncrementBuildNumbers as MSBuild properties using the <Output> tags.

At this point there are now 2 new MSBuild properties $(BuildNumber) and $(RevisionNumber). The next step is to dynamically create the AssemblyAttributes version strings using these properties.

</CreateItem>

</CreateItem>

Once created they will be automatically picked up the GenerateAssemblyInfo target provided in the Web Deployment Project.

Be sure to delete the statically declared AssemblyAttributes Items for AssemblyFileVersion and AssemblyVersion.

Delete any of these entries from your project file.

</AssemblyAttributes>

</AssemblyAttributes>

You will get a build error if forget to delete these statically declared values.

Now let’s build and see what happens.

Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 2.0.50727.42

[Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.42]

Build started 12/2/2005 8:46:42 AM.

__________________________________________________

Project "C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\MyWeb_deploy.wdproj" (default targets):

Target BeforeBuild:

Build 51202.0

Target AspNetCompiler:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_compiler.exe -v /MyWeb -p C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb -u -f -d C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\Debug\

Updateing web.config compilation debug = 'True' ...

Successfully updated web.config compilation debug = 'True' ...

Target GenerateAssemblyInfo:

Generating AssemblyInfo ...

Setting [assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("2.0.51202.0")]

Setting [assembly: AssemblyVersion("2.0.51202.0")]

Successfully Generated AssebmlyInfo ...

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Csc.exe /out:C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\AssemblyInfo\Debug\AssemblyInfo.dll /target:library C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\AssemblyInfo\Debug\AssemblyInfo.cs

Target AspNetMerge:

Running aspnet_merge.exe ...

C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\WebDeployment\v8.0\aspnet_merge.exe C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\Debug -o MyWeb -copyattrs C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\AssemblyInfo\Debug\AssemblyInfo.dll -debug

Successfully merged 'C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\Debug'.

Build succeeded.

0 Warning(s)

0 Error(s)

Time Elapsed 00:00:10.29

Since this is the first build today it’s getting a build number based on the current date 51202 and the revision is 0. What happens if we build again?

Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 2.0.50727.42

[Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.42]

Build started 12/2/2005 8:46:56 AM.

__________________________________________________

Project "C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\MyWeb_deploy.wdproj" (default targets):

Target BeforeBuild:

Build 51202.1

Target AspNetCompiler:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_compiler.exe -v /MyWeb -p C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb -u -f -d C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\Debug\

Updateing web.config compilation debug = 'True' ...

Successfully updated web.config compilation debug = 'True' ...

Target GenerateAssemblyInfo:

Generating AssemblyInfo ...

Setting [assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("2.0.51202.1")]

Setting [assembly: AssemblyVersion("2.0.51202.1")]

Successfully Generated AssebmlyInfo ...

Target AspNetMerge:

Running aspnet_merge.exe ...

Successfully merged 'C:\MyProjects\MyWeb\MyWeb_deploy\Debug'.

Build succeeded.

0 Warning(s)

0 Error(s)

Time Elapsed 00:00:13.26

The build number stays as 51202 but the revision number has incremented to 1. The revision number will continue to increment for each build during the day then starting tomorrow the build number will change to 51203 and the revision will reset to 0.

This is just one example of how to increment build numbers during a build. In this case the build numbers are coming from a text file and being auto incremented by a custom MSBuild task.

There are other techniques that you could use. For example MSBuild also exposes all environment variables from the command shell. So if you primarily build from a command line or batch build environment you could simply set an environment variable for BuildNumber and RevisionNumber.

c:\set BuildNumber=51202

c:\set RevisionNumber=2

Using this technique you can go back to statically defining your AssemblyAttributes and simply reference the environment variables.

<Value>2.0.$(BuildNumber).$(RevisionNumber)</Value>

</AssemblyAttributes>

<Value>2.0.$(BuildNumber).$(RevisionNumber)</Value>

</AssemblyAttributes>

</ItemGroup>

While simpler to implement it is not auto-incrementing the revision with each build, instead it’s relying on an external build process to set these values. MSBuild is an extremely powerful build tool exposing many capabilities. The techniques you use will vary depending on your needs.

Hope this helps,

Brad

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